According to Compendium of Materia Medica (also known as Bencao Gangmu), a rat-eye bean is known to be better when a male bean, which is black, glossy, and small, is used as a medicine. It is known that, when the rat-eye bean is cultivated in the soil mixed with sulfur, its medicinal benefits get better. The rat-eye bean is warm, sweet, and nonpoisonous.
Further, according to Dongui Bogam, it is known that the rat-eye bean has good effect on a renal disease, lowers energy to inhibit all kinds of wind heat, counteracts all poisons, and makes blood circulation active. Particularly, the rat-eye bean counteracts all the poisons including a poison of mineral medicinal stuff, and activates the blood circulation.
As already known, the rat-eye bean has a common nature, and is differently processed according to a symptom. Particularly, since an extract obtained by boiling down water with the rat-eye bean shows a very cold nature, the extract has an effect on a symptom that runs a high temperature and feels heavy and painful in the chest, and counteracts the poisons of all the medicines.
However, despite these pharmacological effects, the extract obtained by boiling down water with the rat-eye bean has a problem in that it is difficult to easily make the extract at home so as to take the extract for a long period.
Meanwhile, various health foods using the rat-eye bean have been developed. A representative example is health food that is disclosed in Korean Patent No. 10-0777351 (Nov. 19, 2007), uses a germinated rat-eye bean extract as an effective component, and is intended to prevent or cure osteoporosis. Here, the rat-eye bean extract is concentrated and dried so as to be added to a variety of foodstuffs.
Another example is health food that is disclosed in Korean Patent No. 10-0778044 (Nov. 29, 2007), titled “Method of Producing Health Food Using Isoflavon Contained in Rat-Eye Bean as Effective Component and Health Food Produced Thereby.” To produce the health food, Cornus officinalis, Acanthopanax Sessiliflorum, Schisandra chinensis, angelica gigas, Rehmannia glutinosa, Artemisia capillaries, leaf of Camellia sinensis, and Glycyrrhiza glabra are put into a mixture of chokong (bean pickled in vinegar) and gamdutang (water boiled with Glycyrrhiza glabra and rat-eye beans), and an obtained concentrate is fermented and dried.
In most products using the rat-eye bean, it is difficult to be produced into a powdered product containing components of the rat-eye bean, and to sufficiently exert functionality of the rat-eye bean only because components of various medicinal stuffs are taken along with the components of the rat-eye bean.